Sorry if this has been posted already.

EXCLUSIVE APCW INTERVIEW: This week J Todd travels to the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. In his exclusive video interview with Andre Wilsenach, the CEO of Alderney Gambling Control Commission.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeAuNBNgQbg

Great find!

Andre isn't CEO...the gaming commission is more government body than cosy company

He sits below the 'Commissioners' and the ''Chairman of the Commission' and acts in a prosecuting attorney style....

André Wilsenach
Executive Director

André Wilsenach has a long history in gambling regulation. He served on both the national and provincial gambling boards in South Africa. Subsequently, he became the first CEO of a South African company which was established to render electronic monitoring services to the National Gambling Board of South Africa. He was chair of the International Association of Gaming Regulators for 2009 and a member of the International Masters of Gaming Law

AGCC ulimately blame DoJ for loss of player funds

'DoJ should work with regulators'

'Cant see which part of the financial transaction was illegal; still can't'

This vid almost deserves own thread

Setting: G2E expo at Las Vegas oct. 4-6th
Interviewer: APCW- a consortium of online webmasters who operate affiliate programs
Person Interview: AGCC big wig-- Andre Wilsenach CEO of AGCC


cliffs:

AW: Licensee's must inform AGCC of "events" (political, litigation)that may impact business operations; must comply with specific prudential ratios to ensure that business is fully capitalized at all times.

AW: AGCC was confident after the indictments were unsealed on april 15th that FTP was still solvent. There were no evidence that was presented before April 15th or soon thereafter that suggested otherwise.

AW: AGCC was unaware that the DOJ had frozen FTP funds for 2-3 years leading up to indictments. Only uncovered after AGCC did their own investigating after April 15th. AGCC was not notified by FTP or DOJ of these seizures. FTP was in breach of license agreements by this alone (see first pt).

AW: Frozen funds were in payment processors that were seized. (my note: here AW is a bit ambiguous). It was reported to them (AGCC) as "cash" losses and not player funds.

AW: Inherently, there must be trust between the regulator and FTP. There was trust but once we uncovered these 2 things (my note: I'm assuming he means ftp's loss of "cash" and not reporting seizures) AGCC decided to suspend FTP's license in June. (important)

AW: AGCC felt that hearings should have taken place in public due player interests. FTP was concerned about incriminating themselves and AGCC commission. (my note: AW draws a line between the "AGCC commission" and himself).

AW: (my note: after some discussion about hearings and license revoke)
"as a regulator we have a responsibility to keep crime out of the industry... although there is a huge player interest, we cannot allow a operator to continue doing business whereby operators would deposit more money and ultimately lose money."

AW: Hears that there is a new potential buyer and hopes it happens. AGCC would work with new management and ownership to re-license the site... "that is in the best interest of the players".

AW: "WE WERE AWARE ALL ALONG THAT THE FUNDS HAD BEEN CO-MINGLED WITH THEIR OWN FUNDS. WE WERE NEVER CONCERNED ABOUT IT PURELY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW THAT THERE WAS SUFFICIENT FUNDS TO COVER PLAYER LIABILITIES"

AW: "Let's talk about segregation of funds... some authorities believe it is the silver bullet. We do not believe that necessarily will solve the problem. Fact of the matter is that although funds are held in segregated accounts you always set with a difficulty that in the case of insolvency that if the bank does not recognize that the third party interest, namely the interest of the player then the bank has the first right, the first option on those funds... in case of insolvency you just dont know whether the insolvency legislation that applies-- in that particular country-- recognizes third party interest"

AW: I don't think it is a Ponzi scheme.

Agreed.

Andre Wilsenach says that during the 3 years the DOJ was seizing funds from processors, the AGCC had no idea that any of the seizures had taken place till after BF.

I knew. The processors were named when it happened on some if not all of the seizures. Did anybody else here know? Anybody remember Sgt. Schultz?

Decent vid, if he is telling the truth the only thing you can really blame the AGCC for is for being incompotent. But I really wonder wether they really didn't know of the seizures.

Glad the post got it's own thread.

Thanks all.

thanksf for posting, good video

He is a lawyer, he probally is stating agcc wasn't legally informed by doj or ftp so they didn't know as a legal point

Saw this yesterday. I would have liked to hear more questions about the legality of offering games to the US. There isn't much in this video though. FTP was supposed to report everything going on in their business and failed to. This is the reason why the AGCC had no idea they didn't have the funds to cover player balances.

That's not the way he came across at all.

He really seemed to mean that they had absolutely no idea that there were any seizures prior to April 15.

Apparently, they trusted FT and thus didn't feel it was necessary to be more vigilant.

They regulated by report, which means anything FTP didn't tell them, they didn't know.

thanks for sharing

Ty Sir. It is not often that an online regulator speaks out! Not massive news but maybe a first for the industry and a high profile topic to start with.


On a side note to above...

I'm not sure their was any Processor Seized Funds worldwide list stating which processor was hit, for how much and who's money they were holding when hit.

FTP reported the funds as 'cash in US' as opposed to 'funds seized and not liquid'. Like everyone else, AGCC thought FTP had billions of $$ in US accounts where the ultimate parent co., Tiltware LLC enjoys this offshore treatment in a very onshore location (AGCC can't find out squat as no accounts public, DoJ doesn't tell squat and AGCC basically has to go on trust of owners).

DoJ did not report to AGCC, at any time during the 3 yr period pre BF, that DoJ was seizing money bound for and from FTP from processors. Obv not an international requirement under law but still regarded by some as a moral obligation for DoJ to inform the regulator.

I doubt many phantom depositors were emailing AGCC either

I think the DOJ wanted to tell them, but nobody in the DOJ had a clue as to where Alderney was.

Lol. I uploaded a map in the Discussion Thread, some of which the DoJ quoted in their indictment. Must have seen my map DoJ, no??

Reported as 'cash in US', not as a loss.

He draws a line between himself and "commissioners". Andre acts as Executive Director, paid by the AGCC and working for the AGCC, providing evidence to the commissioners, for their ruling. You are not alone in not understanding the set up but it is vital if you are to understand quality regulation.

FTP stated in ToS that funds weren't segregated

When i first started playing poker online, I never really expected much protection from the licensing organizations like Kahnawake, Malta, Mann, Alderney, etc.

This interview just demonstrates the lack of diligence and rigor that these organizations put into their task. Alderney let FTP do whatever they pleased, and just sat there and did nothing to verify or investigate facts as reported to them by FTP.

Here in the US there is a near-constant cry for deregulation. But time and time again, businesses demonstrate that they need someone looking over their shoulder.

Why is it that you have been so particularly supportive of the AGCC? It seems rather odd.

obv a shill. take a look at his posting history.

Seems to me they made no effort to check up on Full Tilt. When really they should have done weekly/monthly checks on FTP to make sure that always have players funds covered incase the site gets shutdown. As a regulator that should be among the top 3 concerns of any online gambling commision. Instead they were relying on FTP to report to them, which inevitably leads them open to being misled if FTP knows they may be in breach of their license.

While I agree that segragated accounts aren't neccesserliy the silver bullet, it makes it less likely that a company can use that money to pay themselves and say "No one will ever notice as long as players continue to deposit money". The only problem was they kept doing it without the commision knowing, and made a crater out of a mole hill.

ty for the cliffs, vamooose.

I agree with the AGCC that having segregated player funds aren't that big of a deal. The only thing they protect players from in our case is the governmnet. There would be nothing from stoping ownership from robbing segregated player funds.

I think what he was trying to say was having our money in a segregated account wouldn't have protected us for example from them taking out a line of credit against that account and "losing" all the money.

Once they "lost" the money and became insolvent the creditor for the loan would have been first in line at bankruptcy so we would not have been made whole either way.

In the revocation notice, the AGCC mentioned they had cautioned FT twice, I believe in 2010.

Have they ever stated what the cautions were about?

I thought it was over Full Tilt not reporting prior seizures, but he now states that they were unaware of the pre-BF DOJ actions.

And they did nothing to Microgaming who as most of us know stiffed players for millions.

IMO this guy is completely full of it.

Also he does not think segregated funds is a huge benefit. Again this is
extremely foolish coming from a licensor. Segregated funds while maybe not foolproof is a huge step in protecting player funds.

Also a self-assessing reporting requirement is a complete joke. Time for segregation of funds to be mandatory with annual independent trust audits at a minimum.

AGCC really does nothing at all and provides almost zero protection to players.